The Winchester and His Lonely Angel
by NataliaRusakov
Summary: The curtain never falls on the truly great, only opens to a different stage. Castiel and Dean are about to discover this as humanity interferes with their love. Established relationship, emotional highs, post-series... Written to ease some personal grief. Readers would mean the world.


**_Written to ease some grief. First Supernatural entry, also posted to my Tumblr (she-of-many-fandoms), please leave a review, I'd love to know what you think of my writing. _****_Jenny._******

* * *

_Love of mine some day you will die  
But I'll be close behind  
I'll follow you into the dark_

Age didn't concern angels.

Gabriel had been inhabiting his vessel since the early 5th century, and he still didn't look a day over forty.

Cas had been inhabiting Jimmy Novak for fifty-five years. His hair was still thick, eyes clear, height and strength unchanged. Still Cas.

Humans aren't blessed in that regard. Castiel had watched his mate age, watched his hair thin out and grey, watched as the green eyes blurred, watched as thin lines crept over the face, yet the look he gave Castiel every morning remained unchanged, the look of pure unconditional love, open and honest, until Cas caught him staring into the bathroom mirror, tracing the new lines, running a hand through bristled, weak hair. And every morning, Cas would press a kiss to that soft skin, murmur soft words into the love of his existence, for the rest of time.

But time was one thing they didn't have. Dean was weakening. It began with a cough, a tremble in the old fingers, a cry as he tried to straighten up. Cas would be at his side in seconds, supporting him, easing the old lungs, clasping the hands between his own to steady them, ineffectual rubs, soothes reminding Cas that he was painfully human, but not enough so to allow him to grow old with his love.

Death came calling one warm sunny afternoon. He had come once before, on a bitterly cold winter's night, illuminated by the flashes of lightning in an angry sky. Cas had wrapped the frail body of his love in his arms, stared Death in the eye until Death himself had backed down. Dean Winchester was Castiel's. And Castiel was selfish, and knew it.  
_  
No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white  
Just our hands clasped so tight  
Waiting for the hint of a spark  
If heaven and hell decide  
That they both are satisfied  
Illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs._

That summer afternoon had been spent out in the garden of the little house they had built together, watching new flowers bloom through the dead ones Cas had neglected.

'Look Cas.' Dean murmurs. 'Look at them. Look at the new life.'

'I prefer old lives. New life is too unpredictable.'

'Flowers aren't supposed to live forever Cas. They're fleeting, and that's what makes them so beautiful.'

They aren't talking about the flowers any more.

'They spend their entire lives revelling in the beauty of the sun, but they can't live forever Cas. They just can't.'

'Why can't they?' Cas chokes. 'Why can't just one stay perfect forever? Just one. Just this one. Please.'

They weren't talking to only each other any more.

'Look at me Cas.' Cas does so, and the tears in both pairs of eyes cloud their sight. 'You are my sun, Cas. You are my life now. I spent all those years in the dark, alone, lost, and then you came and showed me things I couldn't imagine possible. I've lived a full life Cas, with people I love, and the person who taught me how to be.'

'I'm not finished.'

'Life never is, Cas. But that's beautiful too. Because we crammed so much into all those years. All those days we had. Eternity was here, with you.'

'I don't want to be alone,' Cas finally broke. 'I'll spend the rest of eternity alone. I can't follow you to Heaven, Dean. I can't follow you. You'll be alone and I'll be alone, and I can't. I can't lose you.'

Soft hands found their way up to Jimmy's face, strokes away Castiel's tears, held Jimmy's shoulders as Castiel's racketing sobs tremble through the thin frame.

'I won't leave you Cas. I'll watch over you. My turn to be the guardian angel. I swear, you won't be alone.'

'Why can't I keep you? Why can't I just have one thing. One. You, please. I just...'

'Cas.'

Sam and Gabriel are crossing the unmown grass, hand in hand, strong and infuriatingly young and healthy.

'Go away,' Cas whimpers. 'Go away. He's not going. I won't lose him.'

Gabriel kneels down beside his brother, taking his hands in an un-Gabe-like gentle, reassuring display of quiet brotherly affection.

'You're not going to be alone brother.' There's no trace of humour in Gabriel's tone, no jokey 'baby bro's.' Just the quiet assurance that Gabe will look after Dean as he looked after Sammy.

* * *

_It was only three years since Cas had cradled Dean in his arms as the old hunter howled in grief, yet safe in the knowledge that he had fulfilled his promise to his father, to protect his brother until the end of his life, but even Dean couldn't prevent the bitter cancerous tumour, forcing through all of Sam's healthy ways, couldn't force his little brother to take the treatment, couldn't force Gabriel to transfer the tumour to Dean...but had still sat quietly by the bedside of the sunlit room overlooking the water, and hummed Sammy to sleep._

Cas had held him in his arms then, and slowly the philosophical man that Castiel loved had taken back control from the headstrong hunter, wallowing in grief. But that time, even as they had buried Sam (Dean had refused to burn him. Instead, he had let the cool ground soothe the pain, a life lived in fire, and laid to rest in earth), Cas had still reached out a hand and found Dean's. Now his hand would be empty, forever.

* * *

But that didn't mean that Cas was willing.

'No.' The word was a statement, an assurance, a groan, a whimper, all at the same time, everything but a question. 'I can't. We're not ready yet.'

Both Gabe and Sam open their mouths, but Dean beats them to it.

'I can't be here any longer Cas. I'm not supposed to. You chased Death away last time and it hurts. My body is old now, broken, and it doesn't work. But my heart still does, and my heart is telling me exactly the same thing as you are. I don't want to leave you. But it's time, and when it's your time, I'll be waiting, waiting for you. I'm watching over you now Cas.'

'We didn't have time...'

'For what? We had fifty-five years Cas. Fifty-five years of my soulmate. I'd have been content with a single day, but we had a thousand times that.'

'I can't say it. I can't...'

'You've said it a thousand times Cas, and you've proved it a thousand more. Don't say it. Save it, and it can be the first thing you say to me on the other side.'

A cold presence stirs up the garden, and Cas stares up into the face of Death.

'I- I'm not... You can't...' But a gentle hand stills him, and Gabriel fixes Death with the Archangel Stare.

'I will take Dean Winchester.'

Death bows, subordinate to the small Archangel, and vanishes.

It's a gentle kiss placed on gentle lips, and Cas does not break, but commits the feel of Dean's lips to eternal memory, and then he is gone, and Sam is gone, and Gabe is gone, and Cas is alone, but the as the sun begins to set, the light refracts for the briefest of seconds and the horizon lights up in the same shade of Dean's eyes, and then it is gone, the sky is dark, and Cas is kneeling on an old, threadbare rug with an old, frail body in his arms, alone.

A sudden buzz seizes his mind, and he's shocked by the sudden resurgence of Grace, enough to hear:

_'Dean Winchester is saved.'_

It's the same message that Castiel broadcast when he raised Dean from perdition, and although he does not recognize the voice, the inflection suggests a reassurance for Cas, that his mate is safe in Heaven. The words are bittersweet. The fear of losing Dean to Purgatory is gone, but the overwhelming realization of eternal loneliness punches a gaping hole through his chest, and he collapses, lying down and staring blindly at the stars.

He buries Dean as the sun comes up, in a grave beside his brother, overlooking the water, with a bottle of whiskey in one hand, and Castiel's tie in the other, with the trenchcoat keeping him warm. He takes nothing but the ring he gave Dean, and after much thought, he suspends it around a thin chain and wears it tucked beneath his shirt. He has been forsaken by Heaven, and has Fallen both to Earth and in love. He wants to die, but they're cruelly keeping him alive, a human-angel, trapped in life and banned from death.

But Castiel had not been forgotten.

Not by the one who had received his blind faith, and lost it, deservingly so, to a man far stronger than him. He may be disinterested, but not apathetic, and certainly not when it comes to love.

**

All over Heaven and Earth, the telepathic link is seized by a voice once thought lost. Angels doubled over at the sheer strength of it, and it blew out power across seventeen countries.

_'Castiel is saved.'_

* * *

Warm hands are stroking through Castiel's hair, strong fingers mapping out his face.

Lips are pressed gently to his forehead, and words are murmured against his temples.

'Come back Cas.'

For that voice, Cas would do anything.

He blinks, and opens eyes. His eyes. The world is unfamiliar and yet, feels like home.

It's not hard to guess why.

'I told you I'd wait for you.'

Dean is young, strong, vital. He's the Dean Cas raised from Hell, but his eyes are old, soft and utterly in love with the angel in his arms, and Cas can almost feel his own love reflecting back.

There will be time for introductions later. Time for him to meet John and Mary Winchester, time for him to meet Sam again, to wind up Gabe again, time to show Dean Heaven as he knows it, but for now, he's content to lie in his Dean's arms, and watch the unending sunrise for the rest of time.

They have time now.

All the time in the world.

And they're together.

Which, in Cas's opinion, is all that really matters in the end.

_Love of mine  
Someday you will die  
But I'll be close behind  
I'll follow you into the dark_

No blinding light  
Or tunnels, to gates of white  
Just our hands clasped so tight  
Waiting for the hint of a spark

* * *

**_Okay, cheesy, but it helped my heart ease a little. I may continue, depending on reviews._**


End file.
